I could go on with how Eric finally decides to chose Nicole while she's left town to clear her head & forget Eric and how he plans go to her and tell her he loves her and wants to leave the church for her, but before he can he finds out she's impulsively (and drunkenly) eloped with a guy in Las Vegas & brings him back to Salem. Of course, Nicole's hubby ends up being not quite a fabulous as advertised, but before Nicole or Eric can realize he's a secret baddie, Eric refuses to pursue Nicole out of respect for the sanctity of her marriage vows. Of course, once Nicole manages to extricate herself from that marriage (taking the better part of a year), Eric & Nicole finally plan to wed, but on the day of their wedding, who should show up but a former love of Eric's during his time as a photojournalist away from Salem who he'd thought had been killed (and helped lead to his turn to the church to begin with) who also just happens to bring with her a child -- Eric's child. The wedding, naturally, comes to a grinding halt and as Eric attends to this new shock, Nicole curses God for once again ruining her chance at happiness....

My version of that has always been that, while in the Congo on assignment, Eric has a sexual relationship with Neema, the teenage girl he bonded with over photography in the village that was raided by those Congo rebels. Eric told Nicole about that day where they threatened to kill Neema unless he stepped forward to take her place. But what he never said was that the rebels found Eric and Neema lying together. The rebel was enraged that the "white devil" was with one of their own and decided to torment him for it in front of the whole village. Before Eric knew it, the priest jumps in and is killed. Neema is traumatized and runs away, not realizing she is carrying Eric's child. Eric is so deeply ashamed that his "sin" caused the death of a good man, that right there he decides to devote his life to the priesthood, to do the work the deceased priest would have done if he had lived.

Fast forward 10-12 years, just as Eric learns what Nicole did and is reeming her out for it, Kristen returns to Salem with Neema and Eric's child, a beautiful girl, and exposes what a lying hypocrite Eric is.